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QuestionNewly plastered wall uneven in places with rough patches

I've just had my bedroom wall and ceiling plastered. The finish is good in most places but on the ceiling there is an uneven patch where the light used to be, and the walls have rough patches.

I can't paint on to it until I do some more remedial work. Is this normal? Should the plasterer have left the walls and ceiling ready for painting? Or is it standard practice to leave the later 'decorator' to fix smaller surface abnormalities?

if you have just had the walls and ceiling skimmed then this will not change the shape of the walls or ceiling ie bumps that were there before will remain because you only put skim on at a thickness of 3mm, however the walls and ceiling should be finished so they can be painted without any remedial work taking place if the walls and ceiling were in that bad of state that skimming would not be enough to leave you with the desired finish then other techniques should have been used like over-boarding and bonding out. hope this answers your question. Scott

The plaster should be ready to paint with no sanding or filling, but if you have to, then i would use a filler called easy-fill, use a wide filling knife or even trowel and try to blend in uneven wall/ceiling, wait to dry, sand down and paint .

I've followed a plasterer around for years and thought it was common practice to patch up before painting, but been using another guy for last year and never had to do any prep work before paint. Sounds like he hasn't done a good job.

It should have been bonded out with a thin coat of bonding 1st . That's what a good spread would do.
To make it simply to skim over.
If to existing was so bad it should have been over boarded/re-boarded.
Sounds also like it did not get any cross - trails.
Give it a mist coat before you do any making-good.
Then easy fill over bad bit in 2 coats and sand down. Who a shame bad job and they probably got paid o.k. when many real good spreads are struggling.
Finish laid o to this will ripple.